flowers flowers and more flowers

the one thing that my ever loving fiance really cared about in terms of wedding "florals" were the centerpieces...when we signed out contract with fox hollow and did a final walkthrough of the ballroom, they were setting it up for a wedding and these guys were being put into place

(from tina's wedding at fox hollow, picture courtesy of her liweddings.com review)

we have been trying to get quotes for this guy and it's EXPENSIVE!!!! UBER DUPER EXPENSIVE, the fairest price we got so far was actually from our in house florist, which is fantastic but still a bit over budget for us, so i don't know if we really wanna suck it up or if we want to look for something else...chris really loves it and i can care less what the centerpieces look like really (i know, ::GASP::), but when it comes to our personal flowers, THAT my friends are another story...so we all know my girls will be wearing sapphire, so i started brainstorming what would work great with the dresses, and i came across this:

(images from theknot.com)

Doesn't this look sharp? the flowers bring out the color of the blue dresses and the dress really makes the green stand out i thought... i love it! the best part is, i love white roses, the cream ones with a hint of green are also a favorite and to top it all off i love green orchids! its like harmony!

i also saw this which i thought was kinda interesting and would possibly work very well too, let me know what you think:

(image from theknot.com)

the bouts and corsages will obviously also echo these same flowers roses and orchids...flower girl will most likely be throwing the standard rose petals..

i also had a vision of a petal lined aisle like this instead of an aisle runner

(image from brides.com)

but that will probably be overkill :)

The Great Invitation Debate

aight, so maybe it isn't so much a debate, but more so a "more stress than i need to have" sort of situation...after days of hemming and hawing over what the heck this blasted thing is going to look like, i finally cracked...there really are just too many invitation designs and options out there, there are a billion different kinds of paper, like five different kinds of printing methods and then you have the sky is the limit in terms of design and look of the dang thing...in the end most guests will probably throw these guys away and or forget what they look like after the event anyway...seriously, i'm one of those people so i can't exactly point fingers at anyone haha...over the years and after countless invitations to various events wedding and non wedding a like... i can honestly say maybe 2 or 3 invitations i can actually recall from memory and even those are not in great detail...so why the heck was i stressing out over paper!?!?!? since chris doesn't particularly care about stationary, i decided i was just going to pick an invitation company and just pick a design that i liked and order these suckers...cuz seriously enough is enough...

in the end this is what i'm deciding on, i'm waiting for a sample of the paper and once i see it, feel it, know i love it...it is totally going into print! without further ado...i present to you the tse capuozzo wedding invitation version 1.0

the my gatsby serena invtation, the script is carpenter and the text is copperplate...

reply card, both pieces are in ivory cardstock with navy blue print color

now onto the dollars and cents of this guy... i tried to do research about affordable invitations out there, and i had set out with a 2 thousand dollar stationary budget for 175 invitations...it wasn't until i actually started to scout out invitations that that budget was WAY too high...so i lowered it to 1 thousand dollars for 200 invitations (yes my guestlist has grown since my initial foray into invitation searching) ... through my limited research that was a budget i can live with.. of course i like most other brides out there would prefer to spend the least amount possible without sacrificing quality... it was to my great surprise and pleasure when i happened across the mygatsby.com discount line...the invitaitons are thermographically printed, which was a requirement for me...ivory card stock...and navy blue flourish that will echo my wedding theme and colors...but can you believe it? the quote came out to less than $500!!!! i was over the moon, i was thrilled!!! my wedding invitation search seemed to come to happy ending after several weeks of moaning, groaning and dreading to look up wedding stationary... i'll update more on this when and after the whole process is done...but so far things are looking pretty darn good...what do you think?

Workout Changes

on the heels of F's post on her new workout/dieting update, prompted me to update on my own workouts as of late as well...if you'll remember from before, i planned on incorporting more weight training into my workouts to get out of this plateau situation...and I have! i'm starting to see more muscle definition (well more muscle definition than i've ever had before anyway) and i'm feeling great! but the bigger change i've made is, i started YOGA!

i dipped my foot into yoga previously but to be honest, i was not very good at it and i felt rather silly doing all those weird poses etc...but monday i went to a yoga class with my MOH G, sucked it up and finished the whole class (the instructor was really good!)...and i have to admit that i felt pretty great afterwards, the more amazing thing was i was already sore from my workout the night before, like my butt and thighs were so sore it hurt to walk up stairs (f'real i'm weak sauce) but after the yoga, i was still sore but much more bearable...but what i didn't anticipate was the soreness in my middle section, back abs, ribs, shoulders the next day, all of that was SORE FROM YOGA! so i vow to do at least one hour of yoga a week, i think it will help me all around.

i haven't been losing much weight but i definitely see my body changing in a good way...happy camper!

note: can't lose too much weight otherwise i won't fit into my dress! mom already had to take in some, so altering too much will change the integrity of the dress and we can't have any of that right?! :)

Marrying the right kinda guy

i don't claim to be an expert at this, but i believe i found a pretty good one to marry.

let me first get it out there that i am a self proclaimed baby, i have a very low threshold for pain and i WILL wail and whine when i'm hurt or see a bug or rodent. i will also flee from being in too close proximity to fish, birds and any other form of livestock or animal, dogs and cats usually not withstanding but thats a story for another day.

last night after C and i installed our window unit for the bedroom i was walking back to the kitchen when i felt this stabbing pain in my foot...when i try to look at it, it is bleeding so lo and behold, it is a splinter, how i got it, i have not the faintest idea but it hurt like a beetch...it probably doesn't help that my foot was nearly black from walking around in flip flops all day so not only do i have a splinter on the bottom of my foot, it is also contaminated by city grime and dirt...can we say swine flu target...okay maybe im exaggerating but you get the idea...as i'm wailing away and getting a cramp from trying to dislodge this foreign object from my sole...the fiance comes to the rescue...

he rushes over to me with his magnifying glass and lovingly (seriously i can't come up with a better word here) takes my dirty foot into his hands with great care, takes my tweezers and proceeds to rescue this damsel in distress (ME!)...ok saving me from a burning building or from an oncoming train it is not, but he is my modern day hero, love you like fat kid loves cake darling!

Our Last Dating Anniversary

today is April 24, 2009, 7 years ago i called chris up, confessed my feelings and here we are today planning our wedding! i can't believe how quickly the years have gone by, it truly does feel like yesterday when it all began...and of course we wake up to a BEAUTIFUL april morning, the sun is shining, the weather, a perfect low 70s, and i'm off on a friday! life is good. so how do we celebrate you wonder? well lets have a little recap :)

7am - Chris opens his card and gift (we're going to a mets - nationals game tomorrow afternoon)
10am - manicure and pedicure
12pm - makeup and hair appointment with the uber talented sissi chan, while chris is at the gym pumping iron
2pm - eat lunch, thanks for the steamed dumplings hun
2:30 pm - get stuck in church ave and flatbush ave traffic (ah the joys of living in brooklyn)
3:30 pm - ENGAGEMENT SHOOT WITH THE SUPER TALENTED RYAN BRENIZER, it was fantastic! i can't wait to see the pics
7 pm - Dinner reservations at Del Frisco's, Jenny loves her some kobe rib eye! (it looks like a dinosaur bone)
11:45pm - jenny gets her card and gift (a weekend vacation of her choosing...hmmm the possibilities)

Next year we'll be celebrating a whole new anniversary day, but april 24 will ALWAYS ALWAYS hold a very special place in my heart, to my wonderful fiancee, I Love Thee!

China Patterns

Chris and I finally completed our registry, we've decided to just maintain two as registering at more places just seemed rather daunting, so if you feel so inclined to buy us a little something something, you can find us at either bed bath and beyond or crate and barrel (which i previously did a post on if you will remember)

the one question i kept asking myself was, do people still register for fine bone china? i'm assuming they do considering the section that we saw at bed bath and beyond was ginormous! far more selections than the casual dining china...my original thought was to just register for some classic white dishes...something like these:

(image via corelle)

classic, white and totally replaceable if i broke one, i get another white dish, it matches and i don't have to worry about discontinuity and such because, well a white dish is a white dish!

BUT in reality when we stared registering, my fiancee kept picking out these earthenware style dishes, and instead of casual white we ended up with these puppies:

(image via bed bath and beyond)

this is the nova black collection by sango...it's not white, it's not classic but it's not too bad, i can live with it... and if it means so much to C, i will happily eat off of these for the rest of my married life...so for a set of 8 we registered these for and ready to move on.

UNTIL i started thinking about what happens when i have the inlaws over for christmas and i want to actually set a nice dinner up for everyone? or when i have a giant fancy house, i'm not gonna serve my fancy dinner that i will spend hours slaving over on plain casual china, NO i will need the fine bone stuff...so enter in what I dub thee worthy:

(image via bed bath and beyond)

this is the lenox continental platinum set...its classy, simple and totally up my alley, like what i would've wanted in the white casual china that i for went...but C was not sold...he asks why are we going to register for "classic" white fine bone china? if we're going to be serving a fancy dinner, we better serve it on fancy ornate china, so he picked this out to illustrate his point:

(image via bed beth and beyond)

Vintage Jewel set by Lenox, it's medieval looking, it's positively ornate beyond description and it evokes all kinds of dungeons and dragons motifs ( to me at least anyway) but it is oddly charming in a weird dorky/geeky way...so our registry coordinator (?) Laura showed us what this would look like on a table, and once we matched the crystal goblets and the crazy silverware,napkins and napkin rings...it looked pretty good to me. i was able to envision my fancy thankgiving meal, giant turkey and my "king arthur" dishes... alright that sold me, and it's totally us...it was fairly painless. So i didn't choose the china patterns, the fiancee did...but hey i got him to promise to buy me a castle to live in so we can use our wedding china the way they're meant to be used for, meals served fit for a king, thats us... royalty... :)

Did you choose your china patterns? or did your future husband have a hand in all of this?

(p.s. i better be getting a castle in the not too distant future, complete with moat and snapping turtles! from a certain man i am to marry!)

Photography Permits

This is something i learned recently and i can't say that i'm thrilled about but thought that i should impart what wisdom i gained with the rest of you guys (all two of you that subscribe to me anyway)

While C and i were finalizing the location of where we're taking our engagement photos i started coming across "wedding photography permits" on the websites that i've been using for research and i thought "oh wow, 300$ to obtain a permit to take wedding photos doesn't sound so bad" until i started thinking... hmm... what would it cost to obtain the permit for engagement photos? in my mind...engagement photos would be less people involved with the photo shooting and of course way less intrusive...being that its meant to be casual and what not, it should be either less or FREE... boy have i ever been wrong!!! ladies nothing in this world is FREE.

after some inquiring i find out that not only do i need a permit to take photos at either old westbury gardens and / or brooklyn botanic gardens...it's actually the same fee for wedding photos...for some this may have been common knowledge... but to me i thought there was a bit of injustice going on here...i mean seriously... i'm already paying for admission into the gardens...and then i have to pay another 250-300 dollars for a photography permit that limits my time to 30-45 minutes? for my wedding day photos i'd be glad to shell it out.. but for an engagement/casual photo shoot? get out!!

but like everyone else i'm a slave to "i'm only getting married once" mentality and will inevitably shell out the $250 permit fee for my engagement photos on friday...let me also mention that it is a CASH ONLY, non refundable fee...i better not get mugged on my way there!

stay tuned for the actual permit obtaining recap next week!